(Brussels, September 26 2019) Science Europe Member Organisations are committed to ensuring a transition towards a system of Open Access for publicly-funded research. Science Europe’s latest publication, the ‘Briefing Paper on Open Access to Academic Books’, takes into account the specificities of academic books, including monographs, that must addressed in order to reach the goal of making scholarly outputs fully accessible, as soon as possible.

Open Access to research publications enables quick and free access to, and wider dissemination of, scholarly outputs. It also leads to an increase in the uptake and use of publications. To date, the main focus of the transition towards Open Access has been on scholarly and scientific articles. However, a significant number of disciplines, notably – but not only – within the Social Sciences, the Arts, and the Humanities produce and heavily use books. Open Access to academic books must therefore be considered in the wider Open Access policies developed by research institutions, funders, and governments.

This briefing paper identifies the key issues at stake in implementing a policy of Open Access to academic books and considers the key principles that should be embraced by the community. It also outlines a number of recommendations for different stakeholder groups such as Research Funding Organisations, Research Performing Organisations, learned societies, libraries, academic researchers, and publishers in order to facilitate and accelerate such a policy.

(Source: Science Europe Press Release)

For more information, please follow the link: http://scieur.org/oa-books.